


White Rainbows

by C4S10



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: A Continuation Of White's Character Arc, Character Study, F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:13:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23882089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C4S10/pseuds/C4S10
Summary: White Diamond is a little out of touch. Her family confuses her; Blue and Yellow are very close, Pink is gone, and Steven is-well, he's Steven. She's going to need a little help figuring out what her place in the Universe really is in Era 3.A White Diamond character study.
Relationships: Blue Diamond/Yellow Diamond (Steven Universe)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 204





	1. Chapter 1

It was not often that White Diamond emerged from her personal rooms, even now, in Era 3.

She had never been a particularly sociable Gem, although no-one would have described her, illustrious and brilliant as she was as ‘particularly’ or ‘not particularly’ anything. Those words were simply… very small, very common. Applying personality traits to White Diamond beyond big and bright and incredibly imposing just wasn’t something one did, although now perhaps the public opinion was beginning to sway on that matter.

Steven Universe wasn’t entirely knowledgeable on this aspect of Gem culture. And yes, White was old enough that anything to do with her, really, could have been labelled ‘Gem culture’. She was just that big a part of history, as all Diamonds were. As Steven had become very recently.

Nevertheless, here they sat, together. He had grown up quite a bit since White had last seen him, as he tended to avoid her for lengths of time. And since her little revelation of her guilt during his meltdown only a couple of years ago, she understood why. And she allowed it. It was his right to avoid her if that was what he wanted. She often reminded him of this.

Unknown to White, this was one of the things she did that got on his nerves.

But he had never really admitted something important to her. And White Diamond did not have—did not _need—_ the tact not to ask. She simply was not a subtle creature; it wasn’t in her nature.

“Are you still afraid of me, Steven?” she asked, perhaps only partly aware of how inappropriately coy her expression might appear to an onlooker who didn’t really know her all that well yet. And who did, really? She barely knew herself, as lost within her own isolation as she had found herself for so many years.

Steven sat absent-mindedly tormenting the leaves of a nearby houseplant on the cold white floor that made up her once-spartan reception chamber. Light filtered into the room rather attractively and spilled over him and White. Where it made contact with Steven it lit up his skin, made the tips of his fingers reddish in colour, lit up the healthy pink in his cheeks. Where it hit White it reflected in tiny fractals across the walls around her, almost decoratively.

The young half-human seemed to start at the question, caught totally off-guard. Just a moment ago they had been partaking in meaningless small talk. Steven did not reveal this to White, but it was only because his therapist had suggested he stop avoiding her so much and try to make contact with her, little by little, to help him stop having such a… negative association between this Diamond and a few select dark memories.

It took him a moment to answer, but in a move she would never have made when he first met her, she waited. And later he would think to give her some credit for that.

“No!” Steven didn’t yell, but the word was sharp and rushed on his tongue, and then he added just a tad more slowly, “why would you ask something like that?”

White smiled. She probably thought it was a pleasant, reassuring smile, but it made Steven’s stomach turn, because her smiles always seemed, no matter how symmetrical and bright, slightly off-kilter and ill-timed.

“No particular reason,” she said, looking down at him, “I know I’ve hurt you, I know I make you uncomfortable. It’s only natural, after what I’ve done, to be afraid.”

Her words hit Steven in the wrong place. He screwed up his nose for a second but tried not to look too visibly annoyed at her. He just didn’t like it when she spoke about what she’d done so flippantly.

Of course, he appreciated her owning up to it. But after a certain point it just seemed like she was fishing for reassurance. Steven had no idea whether she actually _was_ doing that or not. He didn’t really completely understand her motivations all the time. But that’s what it felt like nonetheless.

And she had a habit of speaking extremely bluntly.

“There’s no reason to lie, you know,” she said sweetly after a prolongued stretch of silence between them.

Steven felt a sudden burst of stress—the beginnings of a panic attack, but he was quick to reel it in, “fine. If you’d asked me that question a couple of years ago it would’ve been an easy ‘yes’,” he said at last, “but I’m really not all that afraid of you anymore.”

White frowned slightly at him, for just a second, before her expression reverted very quickly back to a mild one, or as mild as White Diamond could get. “I see,” she said.

And inwardly she thought, _am I really more uncomfortable around him than he is around me?_

She dropped the topic of conversation more quickly than she had intended to when she brought it up. They moved back to their pointless casual musings and comments. Steven told White a bit about his travels. White was only half-listening most of the time. She was beginning to wish she was alone again.

But she made sure to smile and nod at all the right (right?) parts of Steven’s story, and to act understanding of the things he told her, even if she hadn’t the faintest clue what he was talking about, or what most of the human experiences and objects he was describing were, or what many of the words in his vocabulary meant, as uniquely human as they were.

White was not a modern Gem. An old model, one might call her. The eldest of the Diamonds—and of anyone else. She was already, perhaps, out of touch with the current Era of Gems. It seemed she was even further out of her depth when it came to Steven.

When he left, she was confident she had done everything right. He hadn’t seemed to be too upset at any point. Seemed mostly at ease the whole time. Wasn’t as jumpy as he often was around her. She had been careful to pay more attention to all that after his meltdown. How kind of her!

When he was gone, though, and when she was finally alone again (at last!), she sighed in relief.

It wasn’t that she disliked having visitors. It was just that she was always relieved when they left.

It wasn’t that she didn’t _like_ talking to people, it was just that since Steven had changed her mind in such a fundamental way, and she was talking to them more and more, it had become apparent that she was always relieved when she _wasn’t_ the one speaking.

This was a problem many would be surprised to learn she had, seeing as she had been told that she had a tendency to speak over people. White simply didn’t see the point in delaying whatever message she was delivering at any given time. She wanted to cover all her bases as quickly as possible before getting out of the conversation.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love Blue, Yellow and Steven, and spending time with them. Of course she did. When she was away from them, lately, she wished they were with her. But when they were with her, she wished for nothing more than to be alone.

For so long she had blocked out these feelings, and she hadn’t realised until now that it had been because if she acknowledged them, she was… she was _afraid…_ afraid that they would be bigger, more important and more irreperable than she had ever imagined. She had never let herself look at the full scope of them. If she did it now, after all the build-up through so many, _so many_ years, what would she see?

White Diamond was big. And physically strong. And her mind was metaphorically and kind of literally as resilient as Diamond. But, as Yellow had once said, while Diamonds were exceptionally hard—they were also very brittle. They could be worked at over the years. Slowly eroded away.

White did not allow herself to think about it beyond that.

After all, her time was better spent showing Blue, Yellow, Steven, and every other Gem she had ever hurt sympathy and compassion.

This was why she still ventured out and offered her body up to ‘the little Gem’ to give them, each and every one who needed it, a voice as big and powerful as hers. To say whatever it was they felt they needed to say. To give them the closure Steven had made her realise they must have needed.

Even if the loss of control of her body was becoming increasingly stressful. Even if it wore her down more and more every time. Even if, sometimes, she thought back to what Steven had once tried to do, while in control of her.

She wondered if it would happen again.

If one of the _many_ Gems she had hurt would decide they’d finally had enough of her, and were strong enough in willpower to hold her down…

Would they shatter her?

She wondered if she would even care.

She wondered if anyone would care, truly.

Increasingly often, she pondered those questions, trying to be logical, blocking out any _emotion_ that might taint her view. And each time she lent her thoughts that way, she came to more dire conclusions.

Yellow was not usually very interested in taking breaks from her work; especially not when it was important. But there were a few things which often called her attention away from the thing that had filled her time for a few short years now; sitting at her desk and delicately piecing shattered gems back together. She was currently working on the Gems which had made up the Earth’s cluster, and she was not even remotely close to being finished, or even halfway done with this new venture.

It was slow, time-consuming work, and always made her feel just a bit… a bit of remorse. For every Gem she brought back to life, there was a colleague or a friend who had meant something to them. and Yellow simply couldn’t bring back every Gem that had ever been shattered. For many of them, it would be impossible to find _all_ the pieces. And their companions would simply have to come to accept that, no matter how difficult it was. And Yellow would know how difficult that was to do.

But she was not consumed by her work, not when she had Blue, or Spinel or the maintenance of her rooms to take care of.

The lively yellow office was full of the necessary tools she needed to do her job, rays of warm sunlight spilling through the room and feeding the many plants set artfully all around the place. A subtle and yet _thick_ musk of greenery filled the air; and Yellow found she liked the scent, and the sense of calm that watering, cutting and treating the plants gave her.

It was also something she knew Pink had liked to spend her time doing. Building an understanding of the plants had been… had been a way to get closer to Pink, really, if she was honest with herself. And at first it had been difficult, strange and sad. But now it was—it was _nice._

She was tending to them when, in an event all too rare, White entered the room with a silent smile on her face. Yellow was pleasantly surprised.

“Good day, White,” Yellow said, perking up over a plant whose leaves had contracted some sort of disease. She was studying it intensely.

She noticed the extremely slight falter in White’s smile as she approached, and the way she glanced at the plants. They had yet to grow on her the way they had on Yellow and Blue (metaphorically) and the rest of Homeworld (literally).

“Hello, Yellow,” White said in an almost sing-song tone, her confident voice filling in the room with ease, “what are you up to today?”

So, she’d just popped in for a little chat? Yellow smiled, enthusiastic to have White to tell about her current objectives, “well, the reassembly of the cluster takes up most of my time, as you know. I already have sixteen Gems returned to life and back on Earth; they were all _very_ exited to meet Steven, understandably. Their memories of being within the cluster all seem to be faint or blurry, but they all remember him and what he’s done for them well.”

“Hm,” White hummed, “that’s interesting,” and Yellow was pretty sure she meant it; White had always been difficult to read, but Yellow had realised more and more in her life that even if she was difficult to read, White almost never lied to them. If she didn't want them to know something, she would tend to just avoid the subject altogether.

She strolled over to Yellow’s side at her desk, and looked down at the plant with some concentration, “is there something _wrong_ with that? It looks… unwell,” White observed. Yellow was impressed that she could see the difference between a healthy and unhealthy plant. But then again, White often held hidden knowledge Yellow was impressed by.

“It has contracted a sort of bacterial infection,” Yellow said in a very matter-of-fact tone, “I need to prune it, keep it dry and use disinfectant on everything that touches it and it should heal up alright on its own. If not, I can always ask Steven for some assistance the next time he comes around.”

“That could be a while,” White stated the obvious.

“Well then, I’ll have to do my best to heal the plant on my own,” Yellow told her, and went back to pruning. After a few moments with nothing but the metallic noises of her clipping, White not doing much but idly watching her work, Yellow said, “what have you been doing?” because as much as she hated to admit it, and as much as she had wished she could do this again like she had when she was younger, just sitting companionably and silent in a room with White was making her Gem burn a bit with apprehension.

It was… uncomfortable, to have White watching her. That old sense of pressure she had always felt when building colonies had returned, if only in a smaller form. It was there. She was quick to get away from it.

“Oh, this and that,” White said non-specifically, and not for the first time it struck Yellow as strange that White did not seem to do much but meditate in her free time. But of course, if that was what she preferred to do with herself, then so be it.

But that wasn’t going to carry a conversation.

“How did your last trip off-planet go? Where did you end up? Star-system B, was it not?”

“Thereabouts,” White answered in a very non-comital way, waving a hand in the air dismissively, “I met some very—uh— _interesting_ lifeforms there,” she said, and Yellow had the distinct impression that she had been about to call them something far less flattering before smartly faltering.

“Did you have any trouble?” For star’s sake, Yellow was beginning to feel as if she were interrogating White, but she made the strongest attempts to keep the conversation light.

“None at all,” White said, “although a particular lifeform did get rather—oh, what did Steven say the other day? It was hilarious— _'fresh’_ with me.”

Yellow had to infer the meaning of that word. She frowned when it was difficult. She thought she might have heard one of Steven’s friends use that term once. “How so?” she asked.

“Oh, enough about me, Yellow!” White said with a grin and a lot of inflection on the—well, on _every_ syllable, “how have you been here on Homeworld? How I would love to remain here myself, but of course, my charitable escapades take precedence! After all, there isn’t anyone else who can give voice to the little Gem the way I can!” and then she added knowingly, raising a finger, “we need to hear what they have to say.”

Yellow frowned slightly, unsure how useful White’s ‘charitable escapades’ as she called them, _really_ were. But, as Blue had told Yellow just the other day, if they helped White understand other Gems better, then they were at least doing good for White’s sense of empathy.

“I agree,” Yellow said, forgetting to answer Whites questions and suspecting that White didn’t really care to receive an answer anyway, as she set down her shears and inspected the little plant all over. Its mass had been cut down rather extensively, but it seemed that only the healthy, green parts of it remained.

Oh, how Yellow loved the colour green.

Yellow stood up, took it in her hands, and crossed the room, passing White along the way. Gently, she slid the plant back into place in a gap between two of its brethren. White watched her closely, eyes shining in the way they often did when White was deep in thought. And she usually was. Always inside her head.

“I’m due in Blue’s rooms, now,” Yellow said, planting her hands on her hips, “it’s been nice to see you.”

“Likewise, my Starlight,” White said affectionately, and Yellow found her cheeks warm at the display, which did not come often, “I can accompany you to see Blue! It’s been a while since we were all together, has it not?”

Yellow’s blush faded and her posture drooped slightly for just a moment before she corrected it. She had been hoping for some time _alone_ with Blue today. It had been a while for just the two of them as well. Well, not a _while,_ but long enough for Yellow.

“Well, let’s be off,” she said briskly with a sigh, giving in easily, because White was right, after all, and Yellow didn’t want to be selfish.

The two of them set off for Blue’s chambers.

Hallways were long, sometimes only dimly lit and sometimes allowing starlight to splash into them through decorative windows and bounce off walls. Once, the Diamonds would almost never see anyone else traversing these halls, even each-other. Now, through select hallways the occasional Gem or touring group of Gems would pass them, though the closer they got to their private chambers, the less frequent this was.

White and Yellow ignored them, but the smaller Gems all looked up at the Diamonds. Sometimes in awe, sometimes in surprise, caught off guard—and sometimes with resentment. Yellow sometimes noticed these differences in their gazes. White did not care to look for them. She inevitably had other things on her mind, and often didn’t notice other Gems below her at all.

It did not take Blue a moment to notice them enter. Yellow admired the way she looked, lying languidly on her side on one of her clouds, gazing absently at a mosaic on her wall, obviously thinking for the split second before she looked up at them, “oh!” she said, surprised to see White when she and Yellow had planned on having some time together today. Yellow gave her a significant look which did not convey any information but the fact that she was just as surprised as Blue. Blue giggled at the expression, making Yellow suddenly self-conscious.

“Hello, Blue,” White exclaimed pleasantly, and she seemed relieved to be in a room away from all those plants. Inwardly, White was just relieved to be somewhere with both Yellow and Blue. That meant that if they wanted to speak, they’d probably just speak to each other instead of insisting on asking her question after question. She could also spend her time both with them, and thinking about all the important matters she needed to stay on top of.

Of which there were… few, White could admit to herself, since the Great Diamond Authority was no more. And it was difficult to come up with new things to take up her time. Travel to use her powers with all those smaller gems, meditation, wherein she attempted to clear her mind and not agonise over how much she wasn’t needed for anything anymore, and spending time with her Blue, Yellow, Spinel and occasionally Steven were the only things that really took up her time.

That and actually letting herself think. But she tried not to do that; not when there wasn’t much use she could put her thoughts to these days. She found herself more and more fixating on things that were not very useful. Not very productive. But she knew no-one really expected her to be useful or productive anymore.

Nobody seemed to expect much of anything of her, really. She refused to let herself figure out what her opinion on that was.

Blue silently quirked an eyebrow at Yellow as she entered with White, and Yellow shrugged, looking slightly stressed. Blue supressed a laugh at Yellow’s expense. She really did make some funny facial expressions sometimes. Blue propped herself up with a small grunt on her cloud, held her hand out in front of her face, and blew.

Two new, comfortable clouds formed ahead of her, condensation swirling around the room and building up to create the wonderful wispy avatars of her joy. She gestured to them with a smile, and Yellow—and a moment later a slightly apprehensive-looking White—sat in their places.

Blue let out a long, calm breath, shot Yellow a quick coy glance, (Yellow looked away to hide her sudden blush from both Blue and White), and looked to White, “hello!” she said cheerfully, “I didn’t expect to see you today, White.”

The light in the room, coming from behind White, bounced off her back and created a bright halo around her head of mostly white light, but tiny specks of rainbow floated around her and dazzled the room as well. It was really very entrancing. White’s smile was broad and charming, and the clouds pushed her words out with even more grandiosity than she often possessed, “well, I thought it was time I graced you both with my prescence! We really should cohabitate more often.”

Blue laughed, and Yellow did too, not for any particular reason; it was the cloud’s influence, “I agree!” Blue exclaimed, echoing a sentiment Yellow had displayed not long earlier. Her bubbly demeaner was contrasted sharply by how relaxed her form was, as she adjusted her seat and lay loosely across her cloud once again, at ease.

Yellow tried not to watch her too closely; these clouds always made her so brazen, and there was no need for that with White here.

Blue had a similar thought, keeping her eyes off Yellow. She was sure that White had never really understood them, and the relationship they had with each other. She knew that there was no reason to be afraid of White’s reaction to their… informality anymore, in the modern day, but White was very important to both of them and they did not wish to make her uncomfortable at all.

Their voices were quick to fill the room, with Blue asking Yellow how her work was going. Yellow, with the encouragement of the clouds, dove right into an explanation of everything she was doing in far more detail and excitement than she would usually deem appropriate. Blue watched her affectionately while she did.

And for the first time in a while, White frowned at them.

White was not stupid. She knew what went on between the two of them in private. She had never quite understood it herself. Never quite wrapped her head around _why._

But many Gems seemed to act like this, now.

Friendship. Love. Even fusion.

For the first time ever, White wondered if they’d ever fused, her two lovely Diamonds.

And to her horror she realised she had asked them aloud, shamelessly cutting through whatever Yellow was saying. She did not let her shock at her own words take over her face for too long; she could not show weakness. She schooled her expression as quickly as possible. But because of the influence of those damned clouds, she was still blushing. Bright pink.

And now Blue and Yellow were doing the same. They shared a glance, and White was too embarrassed, too, too—what was this feeling? Stress? Was it—was she _afraid_ of them? No, that couldn’t be it, why would _she, White Diamond,_ be _afraid_ in such a silly, ultimately inconsequential situation.

The clouds stopped the feeling anyway. Made it fade much faster than it normally would have on its own, but this did not give White any extra clarity. She tried not to think about how she would be looking back on this moment with regret at how poorly she had handled it later. It was easy, with the assistance of the cloud and her extensive experience in self-denial.

“What makes you ask that?” Yellow coughed out, but her cough turned into a giggle, and she shared a look with Blue, and White couldn’t _read_ what that _meant._

Was she really so out of touch?

She stood up very suddenly, and finally without any contact to the clouds, something dark and heavy crashed down upon her, spreading from her gem through her perfect, _perfect,_ (imperfect) form, and it felt like it was going to crush her chest.

“Well, I’d best be off, it was wonderful seeing the two of you!” she exclaimed, still smiling brightly, so quickly that it might have been difficult for a slightly cloud-addled Gem to follow along with.

She power-walked from the room and the door slammed shut behind her.

Yellow and Blue shared a confused look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! There will be more chapters up eventually, probably soon. This is my first time posting anything on AO3 so I hope I'm doing it right lol.  
> Follow me on Twitter @mrbr0b0t0


	2. Chapter 2

After so long travelling without making any time to slow down and take a moment to observe the strange new places that White now found herself passing through, galaxies inevitably begin to fade into each other. Cluster 81 was no different. It was one of the few inhabited Gem hubs remaining that White had not yet visited on her tour through the universe.

She found it interesting, in an idle, superficial way to see for herself in what way they received her visit, which, as always, had been announced well in advance. This was, obviously, only polite.

In the past, she usually earned passionate cheers from huge amassed crowds. Every now and then she spotted a few, or perhaps more than a few Gems who abstained. And, naturally, she did not judge them for that! It was their right to stand back; to watch her with an air of suspicion or disdain. She could not _fault_ them for that. In fact, recently, she found herself thinking, _would I cheer for White Diamond, if I saw her standing across from me?_

She had never framed her thoughts that way in her mind before but thinking of it like that made it just that little bit easier to excuse those Gems. Which was what she was supposed to be doing.

Fanfare accompanied her arrival, the positive; whoops, screams, clapping, music. And the negative; pessimistic warnings, stiff glares.

Urgent announcements of her impending prescence had regaled the residents of this station over holo-screens and speakers for quite a while now, and they were all ready for her in various ways.

It felt just like the old days, of even before Era 2, when White would announce her prescence and a crowd would barely be able to contain themselves. It was a wonderful, all-encompassing feeling, and White bathed in it as thoroughly as she could, now more than ever. It took her mind off things in the best way possible.

Later, she would feel guilty for the affectionate nostalgia she had for the days she used to be worshipped by all Gems across the universe.

A new, unpleasant feeling, that guilt.

Well, perhaps not a new one. Simply one she had not experienced in a long time, and was now, since accepting Steven and even more since his meltdown, experiencing it more and more often. More frequently, she might just admit to herself, than she had ever experienced it before; even long, long ago when she was young, and bursting with new emotions and experiences.

Those memories were old and faded now, invaded by a constant, droning blur in both audio and visuals, just like when she thought back to their old ways of relaying messages on far more archaic screens half-filled with static. But those memories were still there. In the remarkable moments when she actually allowed herself to consider them. There they were, kept safe, mostly intact, and belonging only to her.

Her ship came at long last to a rest on the space-station amongst near-deafening cheers outside that vibrated through every crevice of her head and made her almost want to stop thinking for a few moments just to soak it in with a smile. The architecture of her ship matched the long, orbiting station perfectly, reminiscent of the same architect’s style. Influenced by her own, as many things in Gem history were.

Two Pearls, the ones who used to work as assistants to Blue and Yellow, entered the room, and they bowed to her, shooting each other snarky smiles, the mocking nature of which White did not care enough to look for at that moment to be able to pick up.

“We’ve primed the crowd for you,” the Yellow Pearl, who had spent a lot of time on Earth in recent years, informed her helpfully.

“Try not to keep them waiting,” Blue Pearl’s small voice came, the condescending nature too much for _anyone_ in the room to miss.

White shot them each a forced smile, “thank you,” she told them, almost sincerely, just as Steven said she should whenever anyone, even a lifeform who was not as… not as big or important as herself, did anything to help her.

It was difficult thing to have to get used to after so many millennia of _not_ having to metaphorically prostrate herself before all lifeforms she encountered like that. It had been embarrassing to do at first, but she was simply going through the familiar motions now.

She stood up straight, her form large and solid, her cape rippling airily around her. She used to be able to call this form perfect without ever doubting the word, but now she would just call it a form. It was there and it was hers and she had once thought it beautiful and perfect above all others.

But, if she was perfect in any conceivable way, she wouldn’t have been capable of being so _monumentally_ wrong.

Irritated with herself for spending so much time wallowing in ridiculous thoughts like this since her last interaction with Blue and Yellow had somewhat set her off, although she was sure no-one had noticed, White spread her arms out wide and conjured up a bubble to carry herself. She hovered out of the head of her ship and drifted down her path. The cheers grew louder, were instilled with more anticipation, even muffled as they were through the walls of the bubble.

She landed on a new stage, planted a big, shining smile on her face, and with an air of panache, the bubble popped.

Immediately, the cheering was clearer. The hall she was in was only just big enough to hold her standing up straight, and in comparison to the light and designs of her clothing, it was as dull as a black hole, fighting against the light of a far-off star. The place was sparse and held no ornamentation whatsoever. It was entirely built of function over fashion, in opposition to the places White _usually_ inhabited.

White Diamond waved a hand smoothly at the ground, both as a way of greeting and to quiet the gathered Gems down.

“Greetings, Cluster 81!” she said with a good-natured quirk to her voice, “how wonderful it is to see you all at long last!”

As she looked out at them all, the dim light of the space-station slowly and impressively receded, as she purposefully pushed it away with the light from her body. The better for them to see her with. They seemed to love it as much as they were fascinated by it, the way her light played around with and bounced off everything it touched.

This crowd was more enamoured with her than any she had met with yet!

“Yes, yes,” she said settling them down, “I couldn’t be happier to be here!” she told them all, throwing as much inflection and volume into her voice as possible, “but let’s get down to business, shall we? I’m sure many of you are eager to get on stage and speak to your peers with a prescence as powerful as mine!” she sold herself to them as if she wasn’t their superior; because of course, she wasn’t! She understood that thoroughly!

She laughed, a little stunted thing that was filled with as much sweetness as she could possibly inject into it, “oh, I’ll be sorry to leave you all when this is done,” she said, casting back into her memory, trying to remember something about Cluster 81 while she held the stage, trying to win them over, “you always produced the _least_ foolish Pyrite!”

The cheering faltered in many places at her little joke; Pyrite had been, of course, nicknamed ‘fools gold’ by a certain Diamond. White assumed their cheers died down to make way for the first speaker of many stepping up onto the stage. The speaker, one of a few Pyrites lined up to possess her, frowned at her. She took it for a squint in the face of the brilliant light she radiated, and not as criticism of her humour.

“Alright,” she said genially to the Pyrite, “just step forward and relax.”

She stood up to her full height and held her hands out at her sides, palms flat and facing down. Shutting her eyes, the large hall, whose colour while not bathed in her glow was grey, flashed blue, yellow, and red in many different shades, dazzling the many gathered, and then—she opened her eyes.

But it was not her who opened them.

The being now in possession of her body looked down at herself, eyes wide. She raised her hands and studied them with awe. Then looked past them and down at her own body, so tiny and so very far below.

And then, to the crowd.

She blushed.

“Uh—hello,” White’s voice boomed through the hall with a volume that a little Pyrite could never have achieved unaided, and she barely stopped herself from jumping at the sound of it reverberating and rumbling through White’s Gem on her forehead.

She reached out and touched it.

White, lost within this other Gem, felt her own heavy black fingernail tap the almost iridescent diamond, and had she been more present in her body, she might have felt a twinge of—of _something._

The crowd looked up at her in awe, her bronze body towering over them like an expertly carved statue, the little light it was radiating now tinting the room with blithe golden hue.

She cleared her throat.

“My name is Pyrite,” she said thunderously, though not aggressively, “Facet-1AG, Cut-4BL. I’ve lived on Cluster 81 since before it was a completely inorganic station. My job was to inspect the minerals that made up the planet that used to be here and report back to Blue Diamond as to what Gems could be produced with them, just like all other Pyrite, before I was promoted to Supervisor.”

White wondered if the Pyrite would spend her whole speech nervously rattling off facts. She didn’t mind. She only had to sit back and watch. But it didn’t seem as if this Gem was winding up to say anything particularly useful for her to hear. It seemed more like she was speaking more to the crowd below than to White, which was not always the case.

White began to tune her out as more numbers and designations and labels were thrown out into the air. She was beginning to feel faintly fatigued. This was her last stop on her way back to Homeworld to rest after copious use of her powers. She found her will to concentrate on whatever these Gems were saying, no matter how relevant it might be, ebbing.

Before she knew it, the Pyrite had finished speaking, and both consciousnesses retreated from each other. White’s vision swam for a moment as they let go of each other, which was normal. The Pyrite wandered off amongst the cheers, looking a bit teary-eyed, and joined the mass of Gems below.

A new Gem approached White, who only partly listened to whatever they said in her body. And then another took her place. Until they started to fade into one another like old memories, like galaxies passing by. This was when White suddenly realised that she needed to snap back to attention—what was she doing? She couldn’t possibly be tired enough for her mind to fog up like this; that just wasn’t like her.

Like a piece of machinery lurching back to life, its cogs and wheels beginning to whir once again, she returned to the present, to look out at the crowd beyond her after who knows how long idly tuning everything out.

It was only then that she realised what the current Gem was saying with her mouth.

“—And yet we allowed these tyrants to rule over us! To allow things like that to happen! I was _shattered,_ and all White Diamond has done to make up for it is—what? She apologised? She travels around letting us make speeches with her voice? It’s not enough!”

A small section of the swarm of bodies below them cheered. A bigger one simply nodded their heads or crossed their arms. Some looked nervous. A few even jeered.

 _That’s not entirely true_ , White thought suddenly, audible to the Gem within her. Because she and the other Diamonds had disassembled their colonies, had given the common Gem control over their lives! That was what they wanted, was it not?

And White personally had given _this_ Gem control over her _very_ form! Why would any Gem not be grateful for the experience?

The air was thick and stale, the taste of it dry on her lips which continued to move, not of her own accord. For some reason, White suddenly felt uncomfortable with that.

This Gem inside her reached up with a hand tinted a colour it shouldn’t have been, and tapped the diamond on their shared forehead.

White felt something suddenly. An emotion that bit at her for hardly a second.

Immediately, a knee jerk reaction, she tried to pull away from her connection with the little Gem standing on the floor beside her. When nothing happened, a surge of panic actually shot through her. She _yanked_ at the connection. Repeatedly.

The Gem on the ground beside her gritted her teeth and kept speaking through her delicate lips.

“I have her body, now! Even now, as I speak these truths to you all, she tries to sever my control over her! When she promised to hear us say whatever we needed to say! She’s a pretender! She hasn’t really changed! She was forced by the other Diamonds to do everything she’s done to ‘make up’ for her crimes!”

White was only half listening. Something terrible and unfamiliar was bubbling up inside her. And it was not ebbing quickly, as it so often did.

She was trapped.

The other Gem had gripped her with a pair of unwavering fists, closed around her head, tightening like a vice, and she would NOT LET GO.

Neither her sudden rush of emotion nor the Gem who inspired it conceded any ground to her when she tried to squash them down. Panic bubbled and it roiled and it raised up through her otherwise unresponsive body until it collided violently into her Gem and spilled inside, and that was when she truly felt it in full force.

Fortunately, this returning of feeling seemed to signal the loss of the other Gem’s control over her. White’s eyes widened, a look of sheer twisted, ugly shock appeared on her face, for just a moment. For just a moment, any Gem who could see through a blinding flash of white light, would have seen this horrible expression plastered across her face.

But when the light faded, no-one had seen it. And the only thing present was a dishevelled-looking White Diamond standing next to a little Pyrite gem who was lying flat on the ground, bowled over with the force of White Diamond’s pent up emotion, whether the Pyrite recognised the force that had slammed into her as that or not.

There was a moment of electrified silence throughout the entire hall, making White’s head buzz. There was a moment of rage, then. Barely a moment when her old anger stabbed at her, heating her up, making her want to scream at someone.

Instead, she forced it down and beamed pleasantly out at the crowd, then threw her arms out wide as if ready to embrace them, and said, “how lovely it has been listening to your stories, and seeing things from the perspective of a Gem from Cluster 81! Unfortunately, I must tear myself away from your lovely station, as I have some very pressing business to attend to! Farewell, everyone, be well!”

And as the Pyrite jumped combatively to her feet, White Diamond’s opaque bubble enveloped her in its private safety, and carried her back to her head.

She did not waste any time taking off.

Several hours later, when White finally allowed herself a moment of rumination, she almost laughed at herself.

How silly of her to react so strongly! To worry that a little Gem like that Pyrite, not at all built for or used to the power within White Diamond, would be able to hold any power over her!

She supposed that having her inhabiting her body had meant that a little of the Pyrite’s hubris had affected her in a very unfavourable way. Had fooled her into thinking that puny Gem had any kind of power over her.

But it was all over now, and she didn’t have to think back on it. Perhaps she should send a gift to Cluster 81, just to reassure those Gems there that she was not at all upset with them for their lapse in judgement.

Even if they knew full well that only a short while ago, she would have them all awaiting trial in court for an incident such that.

In any case, White did not let it affect her. She sat down heavily on the floor and held her Gem with a hand. Stars, she was tired. She should have seen that fatigue coming, really. Of course, a power as fresh as this would not be ready to be so comprehensively exhausted. She needed to work it like all her other powers to build up its strength, to truly understand every little part of it well enough to utilise it to its full potential.

When she finally made it back to Homeworld, it was after a long rest, wherein she pushed the experience on the space-station entirely from her mind, and certainly did not think about the time that Steven had tried to shatter her at all, as much as the incident with the Pyrite had brought up that memory.

Steven had a right to be angry, she reminded herself. She wasn’t going to hold that against him.

Blue and Yellow greeted her when she was back in familiar waters. She planted a perfect approximation of a cheerful smile on her face when she saw them.

When they had all exchanged greetings, Blue invited the both of them to her chambers.

Remembering the last time she had interacted with the other Diamonds in Blue’s chambers, White excused herself from having to accompany them, mentioning that she’d rather have some time to herself after her latest travels, which had gone on far longer than any of her previous escapades.

Blue and Yellow left the large hall together, where White had come to greet them, and White left for her room.

She didn’t even notice Spinel until her shrill voice was flung up at her from far below, “ _hello White!”_

White looked down at the little Pink Gem below her and smiled, “Spinel!” she exclaimed, “how are you today?”

“Oh, fine, fine, same as always,” Spinel said, speaking very quickly and with a lot of personality, as she was wont to do, “we haven’t talked in _ages,_ where’ve you _been?”_

“Off giving voice to the little Gem!” White said, unsure why Spinel would ask a question she already knew the answer to, but not wasting any time trying to figure it out. It was _Spinel_ , after all. She often acted unpredictably, White told herself.

She was joined on her short journey back to her room.

“Yeah, yeah, I know!” Spinel said with an air of dismissiveness, “I meant, like, where in the Universe were you? How did it go? Did you have fun? You were away form a lot longer than usual and I’ve been _bored.”_

She slumped over comically as she walked for just a moment to emphasise her point, almost dragging her head on the floor behind her before straightening up.

“Oh, here and there,” White said vaguely, feeling as if she answered these pointless questions every time she finished up one of her missions, “I just returned from Cluster 81, _all the way_ over in Star-system C.”

“Been working through ‘em alphabetically, have you?” Spinel said conversationally as White found her seat on the cool surface of her stage at a leisurely pace, “did any of those ‘little Gems’ say anything interesting, or was it just another snore-fest like last time we visited you on your trip?”

By ‘we’, she meant that back when White had first started showing her thoughtfulness to Gems everywhere, Blue and Yellow, accompanied by Spinel, had come with her once or twice. Spinel, apparently, hadn’t found it particularly engaging.

“No, no, not at all,” White answered lightly, “it was actually even more interesting than usual! You should hear what some of those Gems in Star-system C have to say for themselves!”

“How many of ‘em were upset with you, still?” Spinel asked, looking more serious now, “I dunno much about this ‘Star-system C’, but I’d guess that the further from Homeworld they are, the easier it is for them to hate you.”

White let out a charismatic little burst of laughter, “ _hate_ me?” she asked, and in her mind she saw herself still, possessed by a vengeful Gem, “why, many of them _disagree_ with me, and all of them understand I was _wrong,_ but I wouldn’t go so far as to say _that,_ Spinel. On the contrary, being so far away, they all seemed especially thrilled to see me there!”

“Right, right,” Spinel said, nodding her head, and then she grinned, “none of ‘em gave you any trouble, eh?”

“Not at all,” White found herself saying. And she wasn’t lying; how could anyone give _her_ trouble these days? She wasn’t responsible for everyone anymore, so she didn’t need to concern herself with their behaviour now.

She added on, “and I’ll be sure to send some gifts to the places I visited just to make sure that there are no misunderstandings of my amicability.”

“Right,” Spinel agreed, looking slightly put-off for whatever reason, but then she shrugged exaggeratedly, “well, what would I know, I’m just a Spinel,” she grinned at White and winked charmingly, her whole head bouncing along with the gesture, “ _I’m_ just glad you’re back.”

Spinel, for her part, didn’t comment on how tired White seemed, and how her voice was ever so subtly quieter than usual. It was subtle enough that she wasn’t entirely sure whether she was imagining it or not.

But she was sure that if anything was wrong with White, she wouldn’t hesitate to complain to anyone who would listen. That wasn’t a condemnation of White’s character on her part; Spinel saw it as a good trait to have. There were certain times in her own life that she probably should have made her complaints heard before it was too late. She admired White’s ability to see when people were acting up around her, because she had, from what Spinel had gathered from others, gotten far better at seeing when it was _actually_ necessary to voice her criticism and when she was being unfair.

White, for her part, smiled at Spinel and listened to her chat animatedly about whatever it was she was in the mood to chat about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left comments on the last chapter, and to everyone who reccomended this fic to others, it really means the world to me.  
> I'm not 100% happy with this chapter, but I think it's necessary to show what effect I think Steven Universe: Future hinted that these new powers might be having on White. The next chapter is going to be more in line with what the first one was. I also want to be clear; there won't be much plot to this, but I do want White to be feeling better, or at least better understood, by the end of this fic, and it'll go on for however long it takes me to get there.  
> Also, there'll be more Bellow later on ;)


	3. Chapter 3

The things around White often felt distant to her. Walls and floors were there, solid, cool in the shade, warm in the light. But somehow, when White reached out and touched them, there was often a meaninglessness to these facts. Solid. Cool. Warm. She could touch the floor beside her and feel the pressure of it on her hand, but a strange numbness pervading her form made the sensation lose whatever significance it was supposed to have.

This was not to imply that White was unhappy.

She had her Blue, her Yellow, and little Steven, who did visit very occasionally (she often reminded him to ‘come back soon’ whenever he showed up on Homeworld, but she wasn’t sure he listened to that sort of encouragement from her). Steven had his own life separate from Homeworld, back on Earth, and many things he was keeping busy with. Such as seeing the sights and supporting his friends. He didn’t have the time to visit as frequently as White would like.

She _would_ turn things around and visit _him_ more often, if she could, but since the day he had possessed her, she knew definitively that she would only be making him uncomfortable and further convincing him that she did not listen to his wishes. This was so far from what she wanted that she didn’t let herself consider it for more than a moment. No, it was only fair that White hand Steven the control in their relationship.

Spinel was lovely to talk to, and very entertaining, if bemusing to observe, but her time was more often spent with Blue and Yellow than White. And White would spend more time with Blue or Yellow if she could, but recently, she had become… uncertain, as to what effect she was having on them. Did she still unnerve them with her prescence? Sometimes she wondered.

All of these things ran quietly through her head as, all around her, a menagerie of Gems danced and sung and celebrated.

Blue had thrown them a ball.

The hall was vast and the walls alone were more elaborately carved than almost any other room White could think of; and she had seen quite a few rooms in her time.

At first glance, these walls appeared uneven, chaotic. But after being studied for more than a moment, the patterns that they followed became clear. White remembered, back when she used to attend balls frequently still at the beginning of Era 2 before she stopped bothering at all, sitting proudly atop her throne and staring vacantly at those walls as she occasionally fell into a bored stupor. Stuck inside her own head, the balls would drag on and on with little appeal to her.

Sometimes, back then, she’d found herself missing Pink. Even missing the informality and chaos she had always brought with her. Her little social blunders were, at least, entertaining. And White loved Pink. She always had. Inwardly, she had found the trouble she used to get up to… charming.

She avoided any more thought of Pink when she felt an odd pressure begin to build up around her Gem.

Of course, she’d always actually loved parties of any kind. She loved the extravagance of them above all else, but she also loved watching other Gems dance in time, whirling around the room like so many cogs in a machine. But sometimes, it all became so repetitive, and she had so much on her mind, that she completely zoned out.

Their little parties were far less boring and repetitive these days, with Gems taking bolder approaches to their routines and talented displays. Some of them were even laudable to White’s high standards. A few mere months ago, White would have allowed herself to be engrossed with them.

But today she stared at those walls, studying the way waves of light ricocheted around the room, reflecting entrancingly off their smooth surfaces.

The ball was not dull. The music in the background was calming. The sound of feet moving was pronounced, some in time with it and some on their own, the floor vibrating occasionally with the weight of all the steps hitting the ground at once. White was not bored. She was just… far off.

After a while of not dwelling on anything much, just soaking in the atmosphere, White felt the guilt creep back to her; the guilt she had been pushing away increasingly over the past few weeks.

Those ‘charitable escapades’ she prided herself on? She had not been on one since Cluster 81.

It wasn’t because she was scared. White Diamond didn’t get afraid for herself. She didn’t need to. She was very secure in her ability to take care of herself, of the power she possessed within her.

But even though she wasn’t afraid, since that less-than-ideal trip, she had been… procrastinating.

She couldn’t avoid calling it that any longer, and that was where the guilt came from.

At first, she just put off planning her next round of the next star-system she wanted to move through, as she had finally fulfilled her last chunk of plans. But after a month of that, she really should have started planning. And then she didn’t. And not for the next month, either. Or the next.

She really should get to it now.

Yet she did not.

When the guilt had risen up through her throat and given her lockjaw for fear that it would pour from her mouth at Blue and Yellow at her either side, she shook herself from the ridiculous reverie.

What was she doing?

Just pay attention to the ball.

For once, Blue and Yellow were not spending an event like this either silent or sending each other significant looks while White sat oppressively above them. Instead, Blue had her fingers stitched together on her lap, and was smiling faintly and nodding her head along to a Gem previously of her court serenading her from the stage. Yellow was absently chatting to an Agate nearby her, not looking at the source of the music, but tapping a finger along with it as she spoke nevertheless.

They both seemed very at ease.

White tuned in to the song. To her surprise, it was one of the few that immediately caught her eye. The singer’s voice was low, and she drew out her notes for as long as she could manage in a strange and haunting way. It almost sounded like windchimes, if the notes they produced could be extended an inordinate amount.

The beat to the song was quiet and slow, but it rumbled through the room with a kind of humble strength. Droning instruments made sounds so similar to the singer’s voice that she could weave between them and White could almost lose her amongst them. It was beautiful. But it had not caught her eye for that reason.

Suddenly, her already flat mood dropped much lower.

White spoke up over the song, to Blue, “why is she playing such a _depressing_ song?” she asked, her voice cutting cleanly through any other sound, “really, we should give everyone something much more lively to dance to, don’t you think?”

And White started singing.

The music faltered. People stared. White did not deign to notice, and she did not look at them. Did not see the shared glances, the confusion, the painful embarrassment of the Gem who had just been singing and the second-hand embarrassment of everyone around her.

After a few moments of her leading the new song, in an attempt to save the crowd, whose movement had frozen, the Gems who played the music started up again and made an effort to follow White’s lead.

Haltingly, the dancers joined in. And suddenly a more fast-paced song that did not grip White’s Gem with an unbearably depressing pressure filled out the room beautifully, reverberating between the oddly-shaped walls just as the light did. This was when White finally allowed herself to take in the crowd around her, and she saw that while a few Gems in the hall looked nonplussed or agitated, most of them were pleased with the more exited air that now surrounded them.

Blue and Yellow looked happy to see White leading the room with enthusiasm. After some hesitation and a shared glance they began to clap along to the music, cheering White along, the many musicians and the gyrating bodies below all accenting her performance in perfect time. The room was filled with the vibrant colour of a thousand different Gems and sounds at once, and a fiery sense of exhilaration slowly becoming more and more pronounced between them all.

White’s voice rose and fell and snaked around the hall, suffusing everyone present with its high spirits.

And it really did pick up her mood to speed things up a bit, to occupy herself, to have people clap for her.

Too soon, her song ended on an extended high note, and the instruments around her crashed together, sending a final wave of sharp sound through the room before silence fell completely and suddenly enough to make anyone's ears ring.

Fervent applause rung out among them, died down very slowly; and the next song began. This one was much closer to the energy White had brought to the room than the Gem before her had, and her mission was complete.

“Well done, White,” Yellow said pleasantly.

“That was wonderful,” Blue grinned at her.

Privately, the two of them made the conscious decision not to point out White’s inconsiderate move against the Gem who had been singing before her. They were not in the mood to ruin the ball by potentially upsetting White, who they both knew would make a scene about it if they tried anything.

White returned their smiles to them, and for the rest of the ball, quietly soaked up the atmosphere at the event once again, far happier with it now.

When the event ended, hours and hours later, she was almost sad to watch it die. Blue and Yellow had left a little while beforehand, and the Gems in attendance had slowly begun to filter out of the room around then as well.

At long last, White was alone. Sitting in her throne above all else, knees pressed together, an elbow on the arm of the seat and her chin resting on the back of her hand as she gazed out at nothing again. She was feeling much more content, now. Perhaps getting out of her room had been just what she needed for once, instead of the other way around.

Eventually, she rose and left the room, not one to overstay her welcome in halls better appreciated when lit up and full of people. When the ballroom was empty its morose atmosphere was impossible to overlook. It felt like there was something missing, something existing in a way antithetical to its purpose. A ballroom was made to be filled with bodies. When they were gone it was empty in the worst possible way.

The long, tall corridors that lead to White’s chambers were almost entirely deserted at this time. Most gems, during this part of the day, were at their own private quarters relaxing or socialising quietly with their fellows, recharging for tomorrow.

White was ready to perform her own version of this.

Before she could reach her destination however, a crack at the top of a panel that acted as a door which would slide downwards to open caught her eye. It hadn’t closed properly.

As her eyes were drawn to the imperfection, a brief flash of light streaked through it and across the roof, hitting the opposite wall. It glinted against her Gem for a moment and tinted her green.

She frowned, wondering what that could be, because these were not rooms that anyone but Diamonds were permitted within. They were private. And it also seemed that the door needed repairing. A slight frown appeared on White’s face.

She stopped walking, and through the crack in the wall, part of her eye could be seen looking through.

White gasped, mouth cracked open in shock.

A huge Gem stood inside. One she had never seen before, but one who matched her in height. Perhaps even a bit taller.

It took her a couple of seconds to realise who it must have been. Who it could only have been.

Because no Gem was that big, but a Diamond. And no Diamond she knew was green. But she did know a Blue and a Yellow, and she did have a knowledge of colour and light far beyond what it took to know what colour blue and yellow mixed together would make.

The fusion of Blue and Yellow, stood with their—her?—back turned to White. One set of arms was stretching out to her sides, flexing her fingers as she rotated the wrists on her other set. One at a time, she rolled her ankles and then bent her knees repeatedly, seemingly getting a feel for her form.

White thought she heard her giggle quietly, her voice low and unmistakably sonically split between two Diamonds White had known for a very long time.

White felt her reaction come unbidden, frozen in place as she was. A tiny knot of disgust twisted itself in her stomach. A thoughtless, knee-jerk reaction that made her face twist up to reflect it when the Diamond turned around at the sound of her gasp.

White saw her face. Saw her shining green eyes.

For a moment, they stared at each other, Green only able to see a sliver of White’s face, White privy to all of the new Diamond’s body.

White could not form a single coherent thought or opinion in that moment. Her expression went blank moments after Green looked at her. After what felt like an eternity staring, she spun on her heel and walked speedily away from the room, face growing pinker by the second.

She heard the door slide open behind her.

Heard a low voice say, quietly, “White?”

She rounded a corner, rushed ahead, her cape flaring behind her. Reached her room, darted inside, and the door slid shut behind her.

She locked it in place and stood there in silence.

A few moments passed.

White almost jumped at the sound of a knock on the door.

“White?” came that voice again, “I know you’re there. We can talk about this.”

White remained silent, her form going cold. She wanted to say something like, “not right now!” to them, politely, of course—considerately. But she was so completely blindsided by what she had seen that she did not say anything at all.

“Fine, then,” the voice drifted through the door, a hint of resentment dripping from it. But a moment later it came, in a slightly more jarringly forgiving tone, “if you need a moment to yourself, we’ll give it to you.”

And then nothing more for quite a while. And White waited, just in case they—she—hadn’t actually left and was just waiting to knock on her door again.

Silence.

White stood alone in her room.

Moments later, she was pacing slowly and silently across her stage, at a loss. She didn’t even remember getting there from the door.

Blue and Yellow had fused.

White didn’t know what she was feeling, but she didn’t like it. She stopped pacing, stood facing away from the door, hands planted on her hips. She shut her eyes, head slightly bowed.

She tried to push it all from her mind. Tried not to think about it.

They could just ignore this. Go on with their lives as if it hadn’t happened. As if she hadn’t _seen_ it.

Stars, she wished they could have just kept this to themselves.

Again, she tried to shove it down. Away from the surface of her psyche.

And again, she thought anyway; they had _tried_ to hide it from her, hadn’t they? _Attempted_ to keep it to themselves.

Suddenly her guilt returned.

She thought of the way the Green Diamond had said her name. Softly, surprised… nervous. Afraid?

White shook her head and tried to call to mind everything she had learned recently about Fusion. From Steven, mainly.

This was Blue and Yellow’s relationship given physical form. When Steven had once tried to explain to White why he enjoyed doing it with people important to him he said it was harmless, it was fun, it was a way to interpret someone in a whole new light. She tried to recall everything else he had said about it and eventually found herself firmly resolving to pay much closer attention to the details of what he said to her in the future.

She cleared her mind and put a hand on her Gem for a moment. She collected herself.

Oh, stars, she had not reacted well to that.

Alright.

Alright.

What to do?

She needed to be smart. Needed not to be thoughtlessly cruel.

She could not avoid this. She refused to. She loved Blue and Yellow; they were her family. She was not going to stand in this room and avoid them because of this.

They’d fused. They’d tried to hide it from her. For fear of how she’d react?

She would admit, there was a moment of… anger. Real anger at those two for doing this when she wasn’t looking. For fusing.

But she already knew how they felt about each other. She already knew that. Even if she didn’t often think about it in so many words. She knew it was love. A different kind of love than the kind she felt for them, but she knew what it was.

White made a decision.

She was not going to hold this against them until she knew about the subject of fusion inside and out, and could form a real, well-informed opinion on it. And she was going to go and talk to them. Listen to them. Right now.

It was what she had learned was best to do in these situations from dealing with Steven after his meltdown. If it worked for him, there was no reason she could think of that it wouldn’t work for the rest of her family.

She might not _get_ it, but she didn’t want to hurt Blue and Yellow any more than she already had.

She stood up tall, squared her shoulders, and prepared herself.

Before she knew it she had reached the room with the faulty door once more.

It wasn’t even closed this time.

There she stood, turning to face White as her audible footsteps approached her from behind.

White stopped in her tracks, suddenly slightly self conscious. Was she still blushing? She couldn’t tell.

She smiled at the Gem before her, and it was a little forced, but that silly feeling of disgust had washed away and she was already ashamed of it. The smile was big, bright, and a signal to Blue and Yellow that she was not upset with them.

“Hello,” she said simply.

Green took a moment to answer. “Hello.”

“Green Diamond,” White said, and Green didn’t seem to have anything to add to that statement of fact.

They just stood there for a moment, watching each other. Then White made the first move. She crossed the room and before Green could react, she was holding each of her second set of hands gingerly in her own. This Diamond was wearing gloves reminiscent of Yellow’s, over sleeves long and loose like Blue’s. White’s bare thumbs traced gently over the smooth fabric on the back of each hand.

She looked into the Green eyes ahead of her, slightly higher than her own, “I was just surprised. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Green looked shocked. A few seconds passed.

“You scared me for a moment,” Green then said honestly, “I thought I had ruined something. Just from the look on your face, I—”

“It’s alright,” White butted in, trying not to make a face at the undeniable strangeness of this new, yet familiar voice speaking to her. “I was just… caught off guard,” she continued, choosing her words a thousand times more carefully than she usually did, “I shouldn’t make my problems into yours. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that if you… _enjoy_ this, then I can’t stop you. And I have no right to judge you.”

Even if she didn’t really completely comprehend the _why_ of it all.

Green’s eyes softened, round and somewhat tired-looking. But happy. She seemed happy. She smiled, too, at White’s reassurances. And this was what White wanted.

“Thank you,” Green said.

“Well—” White began flippantly, but Green cut _her_ off this time, “no, I mean it. Blue and Yellow have fused a few times before. They didn’t want to have to have this moment. The moment where they revealed themselves to you and risked… something. A change in their relationship to you. It was terrifying for them.”

White was slow to answer, “well, I wouldn’t want that either.” She told her at last, then clarified, “a change in our relationship.”

She allowed Green’s hands to slide out of her own, and watched as the Gem before her straightened up a bit. A perfectly even combination of Blue and Yellow in colour, in clothing, in form. It was so very strange to look at her face. Off-putting at first, but the more White looked at her, the more she saw the uncanny resemblance to both Blue and Yellow, the more she grew intrigued rather than confused.

“Do you want to talk?” Green asked her.

“You know,” White said, kind of pleasantly surprising herself, “I think I would.”

“Let’s find somewhere more suitable,” Green told her.

They left the room together. Strangely, White was not the one to lead the way to the new room. She relented full control of the situation to Green Diamond, as taken aback as she was by the very existence of the other Gem, no matter her speculations in the past. Nothing could have prepared her for actually laying eyes upon this fusion. For hearing her voice. For holding her hands.

They found a room. They took their seats. White’s eyes did not drift from Green for a moment in all the time it took them to do so, the three of them—or the two of them? White wasn’t sure what she was supposed to think in that respect—were across from each other and ready to have a candid conversation.

And they did.

It was nice. Amicable.

White stumbled every now and then, for her part, perhaps said things that were careless or could be misconstrued. But it was obvious that she was struggling to be understanding. Putting in effort to make Green feel supported, even if she didn’t entirely know how to go about it.

And somehow, talking to Green Diamond, White felt something… shift. And click. Something about her interpretation of two Gems who she had known for a very long time. Unexpectedly, the merging of the two of them didn’t just blend their traits together, making Blue and Yellow as separate entities harder to define, as White would have guessed.

Rather, it made them more understandable to her.

The parts of them that worked together. The parts that contradicted each other. Their shared mannerisms and schools of thought. Their separate, very different personalities which White had thought she understood so well before seeing this part of them were suddenly even more clear to her. And possessing much more depth than she had been under the impression they had. Which was already a lot, really.

For Green’s part, she was put in the awkward position of having to explain her very reason of being to White Diamond. How it worked. Why it worked. How often it worked (really only on special occasions).

And White surprised her.

She listened raptly.

When the conversation was over, when White had told the new Gem to have fun and retired to her room, she felt…

She felt…

White experienced something that had been occurring more and more often lately.

She surprised herself.

She was glad that for all this time, Blue and Yellow had found something in each other. Something comforting.

She didn’t blame them for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your continued support, and thank you for reading. Your comments always make my day, and rest assured I read every single one of them more than once.  
> Unfortunately, I can say right now this is the last we'll see of Green Diamond in this fic, and I wanted to be as vague about her as possible to avoid forcing what's essentially a fan-fusion into my White Diamond character study.  
> I've got the next few chapters planned out more properly in my head now, and I have a pretty good idea of where this fic is going to be leading after this. Expect updates every three days.


	4. Chapter 4

Earth was a small planet made up mostly of water. The ocean was filled with hundreds of thousands of different kinds of biological life, though that was apparently humankind’s lowest guess. The humans did not, for the most part, bother with it. From what Steven’s friend Connie had told White during this visit, they estimated that not even 95% of their ocean had been explored so far.

They had no idea what was down there.

The idea of this was undesirable to White, and perhaps it was obvious why to anyone who knew anything about what Gem society had been built around pre-Era 3.

Existing on a planet and not knowing what was below your feet? Not knowing the exact makeup of every mineral, not having a plan for exactly how the planet was going to be utilised as a resource—not viewing the planet as a resource in the first place? Just letting it be, damaging it as time went on without even a concrete plan of what your species would do once it was gone?

White had learned a lot about humans recently, and the more she learned, the less she understood them.

The less she understood Pink.

How could they—and she—live with this chaos so easily? White understood plants, and humans, and the value of their life. But the chaos? She could not wrap her head around the appeal of it.

Of course, another visit from Steven, one where he brought along his friend (or, what had he called her, his ‘girlfriend’?) Connie, would bring thoughts of Pink and the planet she so adored to mind. They always did.

Usually, White had no problem ignoring those thoughts. She’d been doing it for more than one Era. She was practically an expert.

But after learning about Green not so long ago, she found herself wondering. What hadn’t she known about Pink the way she hadn’t known the things about Blue and Yellow that Green brought out?

She always thought she understood all three of them thoroughly. Had prided herself on it, even.

And especially Pink. She thought that because she noticed their immense similarities, even when she was ashamed of all the parts of her that shone through Pink, there wasn’t any chance that there was anything more complicated to her than that. She thought she had seen through Pink, and herself by extension.

But perhaps she was just hiding from herself the extent to which she didn’t bother to try to learn anything about anyone, because she thought she already knew it all. White was very adept at hiding things from herself. Although she was really only realising this now.

But here she was, learning about Pink as if she hadn’t known her at all. Era 3 was nothing if not a definitive point in time that marked the beginning of a long and difficult rise to consciousness for White. She did not know Pink the way she thought she had, and neither she did not know the universe the way she thought she had. She had been wrong about so many things. For all her confidence, her grandiosity, her knowledge, her power, her authority; she had been wrong.

And that moment that she saw the Pink Diamond Gem reform with no Pink Diamond to be seen was the instigator of this new part of White’s existence. That single moment that she could pinpoint exactly in time. After that, every single facet of her existence had fundamentally shifted.

And here was Steven. The instigator. _Her_ Steven, who she loved dearly.

“So…” he said with an awkwardness that White didn’t quite pick up on during their lull in conversation, which she absolutely did not attempt to ease even though Steven had obviously run out of things to talk about. “How have you been?” he asked, “I feel like we’re always just talking about me.”

His therapist told him not to put himself under so much pressure to tell White everything he had on his mind just to fill the silence. He hadn’t even noticed he’d been doing it. But here he was, following the Therapist’s advice. Turning things around on White for once.

Not that it was a battle he was trying to win. He enjoyed visiting White and talking to her, no matter his reservations in the past. He just needed to follow advice from someone else while talking to her because they had a… strange, and very young relationship to each other. He needed help making it something better than it had been at first.

And he loved White, he really did. She was family. But he really wished she was a little better at holding a conversation.

When White didn’t answer right away, Steven went on, “you haven’t even mentioned your possession missions to me once today!” and while he didn’t usually care much to hear them, that was something to discuss at least. He was glad Connie was here, but she had done her part in answering some of White’s questions about life on Earth. He didn’t need to drag her into it again.

“Oh,” White said, and Steven noticed with some surprise that she had been slightly caught off guard by that, “well, you know how they are. Not much has changed since the last time I told you about them.”

She still hadn’t planned out her next trip since the last one. Guilt.

“I haven’t left Homeworld recently,” she went on, trying to reassure him (or trying to reassure herself?), “but of course I plan to continue with them later on. I can only do so much at a time!”

And she’d been doing nothing at all of late.

White Diamond clenched her teeth for a moment and refused to acknowledge that thought. At least not while Steven and his respectfully quiet friend were present. She knew that recently she had been having a frankly laughable amount of trouble keeping herself from indulging in unhelpful musings. She should at least have the courtesy to only do that in private.

White didn’t notice Connie look at Steven and elbow him encouragingly in the side. Time to go.

“Well,” Steven said forcibly when White gave him nothing more to go on, and he couldn’t really think of anything more to say, “well, have you seen Spinel today? I should probably find her and say ‘hey’ before I leave.”

Oh. He was leaving. White was somehow both relieved that she would be left once more to her own devices and disappointed that he was to be gone so soon.

She smiled brightly, “I haven’t the slightest idea; she hasn’t dropped in today. Perhaps you’d better check with Blue or Yellow.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said, “see you later, then.”

He nodded to Connie, and the two of them were gone far too quickly.

“Remember, you’re welcome back any time!” White reminded Steven, and his little friend too, if he wanted to bring her.

He waved over his shoulder, and Connie said a polite, “bye!”

Then the door slid shut and she was left on her own.

With a sigh, White stood. She straightened out her posture, working out any stiffness that had built up over a long time sitting in the same position. More than a few days, actually. The last time she’d been out had been not long after she met Green, and then she’d shut herself up in her room.

She wondered how other people could do it; just exist around their peers all the time. White couldn’t fathom it. Of course, she loved to be around the people who meant the most to her, but she always found that when she was away from them she was reluctant to instigate any contact.

She found herself unable to leave her room now.

Framed by the White light filtering through her almost opaquely white windows, she shut her eyes for a moment and tried not to think about anything.

For so long, she had been notably talented at that.

Now… not so much.

Still, she refused point-blank to face it.

Instead she found herself drowning in thoughts of Steven, and of Pink. She couldn’t help it.

_“You never LISTEN to me!”_

_Pink’s shrill voice screamed out at White, but she was already speaking over her, “ENOUGH!”_

White raised a hand and covered her eyes, squeezing them shut beneath it.

_Pink was… shattered?_

_White couldn’t believe it._ Didn’t _believe it at first._

_But when she never returned home…_

She raised her other hand and pressed it over her Gem, pressing down even as a pressure less physical threatened to crush it.

_What had been the last thing she’d said to her?_

_“Now, get out of my head,” White said, voice falsely pleasant as Pink clenched her teeth and held back tears of sadness or frustration or some other emotion White refused to see, “and I do not want to hear anything like this from you again.”_

_Had that been the last time they’d truly spoken? No, there had to be something more. There had to be. That couldn’t have been it. She couldn’t have left things like that—she wouldn’t have!_

_Would she?_

White’s hands shifted on her face, until she was cupping it with them. Her front was cast in shadows with the light in the room coming from behind her. Her head was bowed, shoulders slumped. She hated that she must have been such a pathetic sight.

When she thought Pink had returned, when she learned she was alive again, she had been _so_ angry with her for putting White through that.

And then when Steven reformed, Pink was as good as shattered all over again. This time without any doubt to get her through it.

She hadn’t let herself feel anything about the loss except for at that exact moment. After that she had been all embarrassed apologies and nervous silences.

White shook her head. She lowered her hands. She opened her eyes.

Even the plants lining the walls of her room reminded her of Pink. She refused to take in anything around her, lest it do the same.

She didn’t know why this was hitting her so strongly today. Or perhaps she did. Perhaps it was because she’d never let it hit her before. Perhaps her devastation, her regret, her…grief had built up over time.

She couldn’t let it come out now.

 _Contain_ yourself. She shut her eyes again moments after resolving to open them. Tapped her foot impatiently on the floor, licked the teeth inside her mouth.

She needed something to occupy her, or this was what happened.

Time to plan that next trip.

White walked, her body feeling almost too heavy to carry, to her own office. It had always been rather disused since Era 1, as she always used to figure things out in her head and then give verbal orders through her Pearl to organise anything she needed during Era 2. But she had no Pearl now and she knew she couldn’t expect anyone to want to assist her more than they had to with anything, could she?

So here was her office.

Plain white and possibly the single most spartan room in the palace. There wasn’t so much as a scratch on the walls, let alone a mural or an interesting design of some sort. And there was no furniture save a desk and chair. Just a white room.

White sat at the desk and got to work, setting her jaw and ignoring anything that was not pertinent to the task she had given herself.

Being the leader of an entire race of beings spread across the universe for as long as she had been had not been an easy task. And it had taken up almost every minute of her day up until the dawn of Era 3.

The disassembling of the colonies had been the easiest part of this new Era, because that was something she understood, something she could _do._ In fact, she was a central figure in that effort, as she was the central figure before it.

Telling the story of Steven had been the same. Who could do that for the universe the way she had?

And then she had her little trips.

But now… nothing. For months. She had nothing.

For the first time in her long existence, she could not for the life of her stand still.

She needed something to do or she would fall into the deep, lonely, scary space that was her mind and she would not be able to claw her way out. She felt like she was barely gripping the edge of a precipice of sanity as it was. But recently, she knew she was slipping.

She just wasn’t used to not having a _point_ anymore.

When she was finished planning, more than a few hours later, she sat back and stared at the holo-screen in front of her.

She was finished. She would not think any more on it.

Without the feeling of relief she thought would come when she finally did what she was supposed to do, White stood and walked back to her room. She didn’t have any goal in mind, she was just restless. This wasn’t like her at all.

Her door slid open and she jumped.

It wasn’t big, it wasn’t pronounced—but her body shuddered before her head snapped towards the door. She had, honest to the stars, jumped at the sound of her door opening. That simply did not happen.

What was wrong with her lately?

Blue Diamond ducked her head inside and looked understandably nonplussed by this reaction.

White quickly forced a half-smile, “did you need something, Blue?”

The door slid shut behind Blue, who held her hands together, her long sleeves draping from them symmetrically, “I wanted to talk to you,” she said, and it sounded like something important was on her mind. White almost visibly relaxed at the prospect of this; a problem to solve. Something she needed to _do._

And then her relief was ruined.

“Zircon has Gems keeping an eye on the locations of some of our old colonies—just to make sure they, especially the ones far out, are doing okay—”

White knew this. She frowned and cut Blue off impatiently, “yes, yes—and? Has something happened?”

“Well, it appears that Cluster 81—” and this was where White’s relief was shattered, “—was badly damaged when some of the Pyrite Gems there tried to stage some sort of coup, to take control away from the Gems cleaning up our mess over there. Obviously, this sort of thing shouldn’t have anything to do with us anymore, but they mentioned you.”

White’s lips tightened together before she forced them apart to say, “oh?”

“Yes,” Blue said, and her eyebrows were creased together in an expression that clearly conveyed concern, though whether it was for the event or for White’s reaction to learning of it was anyone’s guess, “they told us about your visit, and that it was the catalyst for their attempt at a take-over. Apparently, they were going to steal some ships and attempt to rally Gems against us.”

White did not speak. She didn’t even think. That was how adept she was at holding her cards close to her chest.

“I haven’t told Yellow about it yet, because I know she’ll want to storm in here and demand answers,” Blue said, and White wondered if that wasn’t what Blue was doing anyway before she continued, “but I just wanted to make sure that you’re alright, first.”

White didn’t move.

And then a broad, happy smile spread just a bit too slowly, a bit too mechanically, across her face, “of course I am!” she exclaimed in a tone that conveyed how _unnecessary_ she thought this line of questioning was, “I simply didn’t see the point in concerning you with a few silly Gems out on the edge of a faraway galaxy! Besides, I sent them all gifts afterwards. They must know that I harbour no ill will for them!”

“White, I don’t think that’s how it works,” Blue said, gazing up at White with her big, honest eyes.

White nearly coughed with her shock, “excuse me?” was all she could manage.

A feeling similar to what she had experienced on Cluster 81 was beginning to creep up along her spine. She ignored it. She was certainly _not_ going to have any sort of outburst of emotion such as what had happened there today. Not in front of Blue, not even in front of herself. It simply wasn’t going to happen again. White had made that decision.

“If Gems are possessing you and going on a tirade about how evil and irredeemable you are,” Blue said slowly, as if she were explaining this to a newly emerged Gem who didn’t yet know right from left, “then you really should tell someone or _do_ something, just in case they decide to take any action.”

White’s eyes were squinting a bit with the effort of continuing to smile as pleasantly and forgivingly as she was, “I see,” she said, as if a ball of rage hadn’t formed in the pit of her mid-section, “thank you for explaining, Blue. I’ll be sure to remember that.”

There was a terse silence. Blue seemed to have sensed that something was wrong, here. In fact, Blue had noticed privately that White was showing her one of her ill-timed smiles, and it appeared too intensely sanguine for her comfort.

“I’m going to tell Yellow, now,” Blue said carefully at last, worrying that she had said something wrong and White was about to shout at her and send her away, “and it’s not our job to fix incidents like this anymore, but she will still be upset that you didn’t at least warn us of it.”

“The Pyrite really only seemed to be interested in me,” White said dismissively, and then, her smile faltering, “now, why don’t you run along. I have quite a lot on my mind at the moment, and I really need some time to myself.”

White took several steps forward to usher Blue too quickly out of the room. Blue didn’t look any less troubled when she left then when she had arrived.

When the door slid shut behind her, White dreaded Yellow finding out about this. So much that she would have laughed at her own worry, were she in a better mood. Who would have ever thought that the tables would turn so thoroughly like this?

That White would be reduced to a child, who had no idea what she was doing, by the people closest to her?

The anger was buzzing inside her chest like an overheating computer. She was about ready to explode.

When the door opened again a short while later with a breathy sliding sound, White was facing away from it. When Yellow entered ahead of Blue, White stood across from her. One hand was planted firmly on her hip. The other seemed to be against her face. She was framed ominously by the light hitting her through the window, the part of her Yellow could see dark, foreboding, and difficult to read.

“You really should have told us about this,” Yellow got right to the point, and she was not really as confrontational as White thought she was while she spoke, “we wouldn’t have minded if you’d dealt with it yourself, but you seem not to have thought it was worth your time at all.”

White clenched her teeth.

“Listen, White,” Blue said, and she was about as nervous to be confronting White as Yellow was. Even though they both knew that they were safe with her now, there was still that old kernel of worry. “We don’t want to upset you, but we’ve spoken—with Steven, as well—and we really don’t think these—uh—trips of yours are really helping anyone anymore.”

 _Upset?_ She wasn’t upset. She turned around to face them, face tight but blank. Teeth aching from the force she was pressing them together with.

Yellow seemed to move in to ‘comfort’ her very swiftly after that, “it’s not that we don’t know they had their uses, but they’ve run their course. You’ve won over a lot of Gems, but you’re only giving the ones who hate us a louder voice to tell everyone with, now.”

White felt an almost painful pressure against her Gem, against her whole form, pressing down on her from all sides. What did they know about this? What did they know about how helpful she was being? The Gems who spoke through her _loved_ it. _Most_ of the crowds who received her were uproarious. Many appreciated a new, distinguished way to tell their stories!

“Don’t be upset,” Yellow said at last, when a thick, dizzying silence had permeated the room for too long.

At that, White finally spoke, “I’m not upset!” she informed them helpfully, still refusing to let her growing fury show on her face.

She knew she was overreacting to this. She knew it. She needed to calm down.

She couldn’t.

“You seem upset,” Blue offered.

“ _If I hear you say that word again—”_ White began, voice dangerously low. But she stopped herself when the two other Diamonds suddenly looked shaken at her threatening tone.

Her anger did not fade, but she understood why they reacted so strongly.

No, no. She backtracked. She was _not_ going to hurt them.

She looked pointedly away from them and spoke bitterly, “I’m sure those little Pyrites talked themselves up immensely,” and then she had the prescence of mind to force a calm agreeableness into her voice, “they really didn’t seem like all that big of a threat to me.”

Blue and Yellow shared a look. Part of Yellow wanted to run. Part of Blue wanted to apologise for overstepping.

A while ago, before meeting Steven, they would have.

Now, they didn’t.

There was a dangerous aura in the room, and they were going to blatantly ignore it.

“White, if there’s something wrong—”

“Nothing is wrong,” White said firmly.

“I think there is,” Yellow answered.

 _‘I don’t care what you think’_ White thought stupidly, knowing a moment after it entered her mind that she did not mean it in the least. Instead of saying that, she said nothing.

“It…” Blue said, and then she took a moment to collect herself, “it sounded like the Pyrite took a hold of you and refused to let go. Like you lost complete control over your body for a moment.”

Silence. The anger White felt was shifting. And in a rare moment of self-realisation, she identified it as something between outrage and fear. A very real _,_ very palpable fear. A familiar kind of fear. A fear she’d felt a million times before and never admitted to herself.

“We would know,” Yellow said, glancing at Blue for a moment, then back at White, “that is a terrifying experience.”

Because she’d done it to them.

White didn’t speak.

None of them did, for a while.

Until, “it’s fine,” White told them, “it’s over.”

“Will you stop, then?” Yellow asked.

“Stop what?”

“The trips.”

White felt suddenly very tired. Every bit of energy except that maintaining her physical form dissipated in an instant. For a moment, she was barely holding herself in the physical world.

She almost retreated into her Gem.

She didn’t.

“ _Fine_ ,” she said at last, “if you’d rather I sit in here all day and collect dust—”

“Now, that’s enough!” Yellow raised her voice to cut through what she was saying, eyes suddenly lit up.

White’s face went slack at being addressed that way.

Blue grabbed Yellow’s arm, as if to reel her in, but Yellow gently shook her off.

Yellow stepped forwards, jabbing a finger towards White, “we aren’t going to stand by and let you do that _thing_ where you act like you’re the only person who’s ever been sad before in order to guilt us into comforting you while _we’re_ trying to have an actual conversation!”

White stared at Yellow, eyes wide.

A long pause.

“We’re going to give you some time to yourself, White,” Blue said finally, “if you want to talk later, come talk to us. But don’t hide things like this from us again. There’s no reason to.”

And she was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I'm going to anyway. Thank you all for your support, your kudos and your comments! They really give me motivation to put more careful work into this and always make my day.


	5. Chapter 5

Yellow knew she should go see White. It had been days since they last saw each other, and while there had been no argument, it felt like there had been. She was not going to apologise for what she’d said and the way she’d said it, because she didn’t want to take back her words. She had sensed that White was about to turn their conversation around and distract them in order to be able to ignore them.

But Yellow still worried for her wellbeing and was going to go and check on her at the very least.

As it was, it felt like she and Blue had left White in her room to either build up steam and be extra vitriolic when next they saw her, or slowly wind down and forget the whole thing. Despite the fact that Yellow had known White for uncounted years, she had no clue which it would be.

White was just like that. Hard to understand, even to those who knew her best.

Yellow’s knuckles made contact with the cold surface of the door to White’s room. She knocked briskly on the door, the hollow sound strange in the quiet that surrounded her. She waited a moment without making another move, in case White wanted to tell her to come in, or to go away.

Nothing came, so she opened the door.

The room was empty. Darker than usual, without White inside to give off a constant low glow. The plants lining the walls were lovely and green, many of them flowering. Yellow noticed, underneath them, small leaves and bits of biomatter strewn across the ground. This was odd, because when White was present, she kept the place immaculate. When she wasn’t, she appointed someone to do it for her.

This was when the first bout of dread hit Yellow.

The second one hit when she realised that the room was not empty at all.

Glowing in the rays of sunlight filtering through the window, was a single Gem. Alone on the floor, clean and clear, with the light that hit it filtering through and casting tiny shadows varying shades of red, blue and yellow on the smooth white surface below.

Yellow stared at it, eyes wide, frozen in place.

White had retreated into her Gem.

And there was nothing here that could have hurt her. In fact, Yellow wasn’t sure there had ever been something anywhere to hurt her physically enough to cause this to happen.

So, it must have been emotional distress.

Before she even knew what she was doing, Yellow had gingerly scooped up the Gem, warm from sitting in the light for—who knew how long? She looked down at it for a moment. It was very big, bigger than hers, even. And it was incredibly strange to see like this. White Diamond without her form. Her whole Gem here for Yellow to see.

She tucked it under an arm, hiding it from view as much as possible, and left the room.

Yellow had never noticed how many Gems there were between White’s room and Blue’s before then. With an expression that she didn’t know was extremely awkward and conspicuous she walked as quickly as possible towards her destination.

When Blue, spending her free time lounging contentedly on one of her clouds with her eyes shut heard someone with footsteps rushed and heavy, she knew who it was.

Without opening her eyes she said with some lethargy, “hello, Yellow. Would you like to join me?”

“Blue!” Yellow exclaimed, finally holding out the Gem she held in plain sight after spending the last few minutes stiffly shifting it around and angling her body so no-one could see it.

Blue opened one eye unhurriedly, saw what Yellow was holding, and stood with more speed and urgency than Yellow had seen in her for a while now. The floor shook ever so slightly with the force of both her feet landing on it at the same time before she rushed over to Yellow.

“What happened?” Blue asked quickly, taking the heavy Gem into her hands without any thought as to what she would do with it. Yellow felt some relief to be handing the responsibility of holding onto it over to Blue.

“I don’t know, I just found her like that.” Yellow said quickly.

Blue looked up at her, their round eyes meeting. There was a moment of silence, both minds racing to search inwardly for answers.

“Did we really upset her so much?” Blue asked before Yellow could say anything.

Yellow was immediately ready to cover their bases, to ensure that they didn’t jump to any conclusions, “it could have been something else.”

“You saw her,” Blue answered solemnly, “the way she looked…”

Yellow pursed her lips, “yes,” she said eventually, “she seemed…” she trailed off, at a loss for how to describe it.

“She _seemed_ like she was trying very hard _not_ to seem like she was upset.” Blue said for her.

Yellow shook her head and looked past Blue, deep in thought, “but was it the Pyrites or us that set her off so much?”

“I don’t know,” Blue said at last, “but—we’ll keep her Gem safe and ask her when she emerges.”

Yellow cringed, “she probably won’t like that.”

“What else can we do?” Blue asked, knowing there wasn’t any sane answer to that, “we can’t let this get any worse than it is. If she emerges and we don’t talk about why this happened, it could easily happen again. And we both want to make sure she’s alright.”

Yellow found herself agreeing. She knew what it was like to let something that stressed you out build up over time. She knew how much worse a small problem could get if left unaddressed for too long. White had looked like she always did when they last spoke, even the anger she had actually showed them was stilted, as if she was trying her hardest to choke it. How much anger did she hold within her that never saw the light of day? Or was it not anger—was it something else?

It was so difficult to be able to tell, with White.

Blue and Yellow realised at the same time that perhaps that was purposeful, on White’s part. And perhaps that was the problem.

* * *

There wasn’t much room for strong streams of conscious thought when one was within their Gem, nor was there a good way to _reliably_ estimate how much time had passed within.

One thing there was, however, was… quiet. Calm.

It was soothing to be here. Any overwhelming stress was suddenly cut down, any responsibilities were suddenly unimportant, any horrible thoughts or feelings that may have been affecting you were reduced in size to something that was still noticeable, but far more manageable.

That was why they had that ability. To repair stress to a physical form, or to something less physical.

White had a lot of time to think, _properly,_ not selectively, as she usually did, while she was alone in the inky blackness that was her consciousness.

And she did. Honestly, even. She didn’t have the drive in there to force herself not to look at certain thought, or feelings.

When she finally reformed, she did not feel as terrible as she had before retreating into her Gem.

But all her problems were still there, waiting for her.

The sight of White Diamond reforming was almost literally blinding. A shockwave of bright white light burst suddenly from the Gem which lay atop a lavishly sewn cushion of many colours which sat betwixt the four pillars framing White’s stage. The Gem rose slowly into the air, and it was impossible to see the body forming within the radiance of the light it emitted. First a puppet-like shape, then her body and head were intact, then her brilliant clothes draped themselves over her. Her cape reflected the light in a thousand tiny rainbows along the inside, glittering still even as the glow faded and it rippled in an artificial wind.

Blue and Yellow had to shield their eyes as it happened.

When they looked again, White was standing before them, feet barely having drifted to the ground, hands held downwards with the palms facing the floor. Her eyes fluttered slowly open.

“White!” either Blue or Yellow, or perhaps both of them exclaimed before White could get her bearings enough to tell. She was wrapped up in both of their arms before anything else.

The surprise of it nearly sent her straight back into her Gem. She couldn’t help the corners of her lips twitching upwards, even through the suddenness of her heavy emotions crashing back down on her as she returned to the world.

“Here, sit down,” Blue said, and she and Yellow were already lowering White gingerly to the floor as if she were made of glass. White was a little bit flattered, if bemused, by the care they took with her.

Yellow knelt across from her, and Blue was on the ground right next to her. They were looking at her with subdued expressions, but the concern was evident.

White opened her mouth to reassure them before they could do what she suspected they were about to and ask her what had happened—but Blue got there first.

“White, what happened?” she asked worriedly.

“Were you bothered so much by what I said?” Yellow asked, “because, I—I’m sorry, I could have been a bit more compassionate when I said it, but I was so caught up in the moment, I—”

White held up a hand, waving Yellow’s speech down, “no, no, it’s quite alright. It wasn’t your fault at all, Yellow,” and seeing the disquiet on Blue’s face, she added, “or yours, Blue.”

“Then what was it?” Yellow asked, voice almost demanding, “you were in your Gem for more than a _month.”_

“We’ve never even seen you poof before,” Blue added, using a new turn of phrase to describe the act of retreating into one’s Gem.

White felt her insides turn stony, “it’s not an issue anymore, really. Just some stress that’s come up recently. We don’t have to bother talking about it.” she could feel the slight tinge of—of fear building up, though. Fear of having this conversation. She clenched her teeth again.

Blue and Yellow shared a brief wary look, then turned their gazes to White.

“White, you need to tell us what you’re unhappy about,” Blue said quietly.

“You can’t keep these sorts of things to yourself forever,” Yellow urged her, “they build up over time, and they only get worse if you don’t acknowledge them.”

Blue leaned forwards and reached out, placing a hand on White’s, where it was face-down on the floor beside her, “tell us what’s wrong. You know you can trust us with it.”

White’s lips pressed tightly together. There was a burning in her chest.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

And that was where she admitted defeat. Because in admitting that there was something she didn’t want to talk about, she was admitting that there was… a problem.

That she had a problem.

“ _White,”_ Yellow said, reaching out and placing her hand gently on White’s knee, “you retreated into your Gem because of mental stress. It’s undeniable that there _is_ something bothering you. If we don’t help you fix it, then it’ll just happen again eventually.”

“You know that,” Blue told her mildly, “there’s no way out of it, now. Sometimes you just have to let yourself _feel._ I used to force my feelings on others, to never let anyone forget how miserable I was. Now I know that was wrong, but it doesn’t mean that doing the opposite is the answer. If you keep everything to yourself forever, it’s going to hurt you.”

White tried to reign herself in; tried to supress whatever horrible thing was rising within her.

But she couldn’t do it anymore.

The pressure returned, hardest on her gem. For a moment, she was afraid that she was going to disappear again, but she didn’t. Perhaps it was the anchor of two of her favourite Gems holding onto her that did it.

She felt her eyes start to sting and realised she was tearing up. It was difficult to push any words out of her constricting throat, and even more difficult to know what to say.

But they waited. Blue and Yellow waited for her. They always would.

“I—I don’t know!” She said at last, and the first sign that she was about to burst out crying was the sudden violent shudder that racked through her body, “there’s just so much,” she hissed through her teeth, the tears beginning to roll down her white cheeks, barely visible. She tried to hold them in, she really did.

“We have time,” Yellow said simply.

She meant it. White could tell they meant it. She didn’t think she’d ever been more grateful for her two lovely Diamonds than she was now, because they were at her either side, pillars of support when she felt as if she was about to crash and burn, already on the verge of retreating into her Gem once again.

There was nothing else for it.

“ _I don’t know what to do with myself anymore_ ,” White finally admitted, the very words seeming to rise through her chest, out through her delicate lips, taking with them at least half of the pressure that had been constricting her for so long.

She could have doubled over with the relief. Even if fear was bubbling up in her deepest reaches, there was that much more palpable relief to meet it, to hold it at bay.

“The only things I had left were those trips!” White exclaimed, “and now I can’t even do those, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with my time because there’s nothing else! All I can do is _sit_ in here on my own and be useless!”

Tremors rumbling through her body, all she could do after working those words out was sob. She threw her head back dramatically as heavy tears splashed to the floor, and cried voluminously while Blue and Yellow each gripped one of her arms.

“That’s not true, White!” Yellow matched her volume in order to get through to her.

“There’s plenty to do!” Blue offered, “first of all—you’re always welcome to spend time with _us—”_

“But I don’t want to get in your way when you want to be alone together!” White told them, voice shaking and her voice already growing hoarse from her heaving sobs.

Yellow blushed, “there’s Steven and Spinel, too!”

White didn’t answer for a while. She had to get everything out of her system a bit through her miserable weeping for a moment before she had forced herself to calm down enough to say, “it’s so difficult for me to talk to people,” she heaved in a jagged breath between hiccoughs, “I don’t know why! I’ve never said it before—but—but, when I’m with you, sometimes I get very restless, or afraid that I’m going to make a fool of myself again, or I’m just _nervous_ from the beginning, and I used to be able to ignore it! But now I _can’t!”_

And she was weeping at full volume again, all self-control out the window, and Blue and Yellow were gripping her tightly. They pressed themselves up against her in strange side-hugs that were absurdly reassuring even though they must have looked ridiculous sprawled on the floor together like that.

Blue and Yellow hadn’t even remotely suspected that this would be one of White’s unspoken problems. They were, the both of them, actually extremely taken aback. But White didn’t need that now; she needed to be loved and supported until she stopped crying, and she needed _help_ figuring out what to do about all this.

“That’s okay!” was all Yellow could think to say.

“You know, lots of people feel that way sometimes,” Blue offered, “I’ve known many Gems who have had trouble with fear where it didn’t seem necessary or helpful!”

“But not me!” White cried out, and she ducked her head down instead of tilting it back to face the heavens, and her crying was much quieter now, “I don’t have those problems! I’m _White Diamond._ I’m not perfect, but I’m—I’m _big._ And powerful, and confident, and I don’t get scared of little inconsequential things!”

“Obviously you do,” Yellow said, and for some reason she almost smiled at the sheer level of self-deception that White seemed to have achieved with just that last statement. “But that’s alright. We can help you with it!”

“We can help you figure it out and overcome it!” Blue said, “and so can Steven, and Spinel—there are a lot of people who care about you, White!”

That made White break out in a fresh bout of sobbing, but it wasn’t as miserable that time. She raised both her arms, grabbed onto the shoulders of the Gem by each of her sides, and pulled them in more tightly.

“And as for having nothing to do,” Yellow offered after quite a bit of time filled with nothing but holding White and letting her get it all out, “there’s plenty to do; you just have to stop thinking like a member of the Great Diamond Authority, and start thinking like a simple person with interests and needs.”

Yellow searched around in her head for a suggestion to make, but Blue beat her to it, “you liked travelling around the universe? You can keep doing that! Just don’t let anyone possess you! It seems like you didn’t even _like_ it.”

“I had to do _something!”_ White told them, because that had really been the reason she’d made those trips. They’d made some Gems happy, and they were a good way for her to accentuate her apologies with something real, and personal, and it really felt like she’d been helping, at least for a little while.

“Well, that’s one solution,” Yellow told her, “if you like travelling so much, keep doing it! Nothing’s stopping you! Just do it for _yourself._ You don’t have to have some great purpose that affects the whole universe anymore.”

Blue pressed her cheek up against White’s shoulder and said quietly, “you can just live for _yourself,_ now.”

 _Oh,_ White thought to herself, her tears slowing now, her volume decreasing, unsure if she was ever going to be capable of that when she had never done it before.

“And if you need other things to do,” Blue said, “there’s plenty here on Homeworld! You can build, create, learn, socialise—when you’re feeling up to it, of course.”

White felt even more of the horrible pressure escape from her.

She laughed.

This was a genuine, messy, throaty laugh. It wasn’t loud; it was small, and it was short, and she was still crying through it. But it was there.

Those answers were so obvious! Why hadn’t she tried them out sooner?

Perhaps she would have, if she’d admitted to herself that there’d been a problem she needed answers to in the first place. Perhaps, if she hadn’t been so afraid of changing, of doing something _new…_

“If you need any help thinking of new projects to work on, or new pastimes or what-have-you, you can always come to us for advice,” Yellow told her, “you’re not alone, you know.”

Blue spoke up, “we had to deal with these things as well. A lot of Gems did. Not having a purpose anymore is a scary thing. And it probably won’t make sense right away; but we have faith that you can figure it out. With our help.”

White nodded and untangled one of her arms to dab at her wet face with the end of her cape.

“Is there anything else you have on your mind?” Yellow asked, then half-smiled, “while we’re here.”

White huffed and dropped her arm, wrapping it back around its respective Diamond. She thought that she might as well mention the last thing on her mind, because it just occurred to her that these were the best Gems to mention it to.

“I miss Pink,” she said quietly, voice still tremulous, although she was barely even crying anymore.

Blue and Yellow both softened a lot at that, “we all do,” Yellow said reassuringly.

“I hate that I thought I understood her; but now I look at Steven, and I look at the planet she loved so much, and I… well, it’s obvious that I didn’t,” she took a moment to collect herself, feeling more tears on their way, “I miss her so much. And I left things off so badly when I last saw her. I remember shouting at her in my ship—”

“White,” Blue cut her off, which was a rare occurrence. Her face was tinted with a mirror of White’s remorse, “we know. We…” she trained off, trying to think of what the right thing to say was, trying to think of a point to make. She stumbled into, “we’d all go back and change things, if we could. We didn’t understand what was going on with her. We didn’t want to. We were all so caught up in all the _pressure_ we’d put on ourselves…”

“She knew we loved her,” Yellow told white when Blue trailed off, a silent tear dropping from her chin to White’s leg, “there was no way she couldn’t have. But we all mistreated her—and each other. We pushed her to the breaking point, and she left. She did… she did the right thing.”

“I’m proud of her,” White said simply.

“We all are,” Blue agreed, “and we all loved her and each other _so much.”_

“We’re a family, White,” Yellow said, “despite everything we did to each other, there was so much love and tenderness between us. So many good, important moments. I like to think that after she got enough distance from us… Pink would look back and know we loved her as deeply as we could. We were just misguided.”

“And we’re all working to do better now,” Blue added.

Tears squeezed out from the corners of White’s eyes, and she nodded, “I know. I’ve been trying _so_ hard to—” she was too choked up to finish the sentence.

“We know,” they told her.

She started crying again. Blue and Yellow held her close as she did, and at some point, the both of them joined in.

Now that all her grievances had been aired, White’s fear trickled away for once. Perhaps it was only temporary—in fact, it almost definitely was—because she was going to have to work on these problems, to look at them clearly without blocking them out anymore before she really started to feel better.

But this was a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was difficult to write, and I re-did it multiple times, but in the end I was sure that what White needs to open her eyes to the fact that she's capable of putting in some work to feel less terrible is to have a big dramatic cry at a time when Steven isn't in the middle of a meltdown.  
> At first, at the end of this chapter, instead of White telling Blue and Yellow that she misses Pink and them talking about her guilt, I was going to have Blue tell White that the last memory she has of seeing Pink wasn't actually the last time they'd been together. It was going to be a short, tense scene where they were all together in Blue's pool just before seeing her off and it ended with them telling her they loved her and they'd see her soon--and her clenching her fists and telling them the same. But I decided that was too much of a cop-out, and White really needs to face her guilt for how she sometimes treated Pink head-on without the excuse that a happy final memory of her would provide, if that makes sense.  
> Anyway, thanks for reading. Next chapter is just a short conclusion.


	6. Epilogue

When Steven arrived on Homeworld, the pale blue light of the warp-pad fading around him, he was caught off guard in a very good way

In the mere two months since he had last visited (longer than perhaps he should have waited, but he had been very busy lately), the palace and the space around it seemed to have been transformed. It had already been beautiful when last he was here, but here it was having somehow topped itself again.

The floating, overgrown gardens were positioned around the palace, filled with blooming flowers of pink, blue, yellow and white with large emerald green leaves framing them. They were positioned all around, at differing heights. At first, for just a moment, they appeared strange and cluttered; but if you looked for a few moments more, the patterns they followed emerged and the breathtaking mix of colours became perfectly arranged in interesting sequences.

The sprawling walkways leading up to it were more subtle and pale in colour. Expertly winding carvings in the ground, star-like shapes arranged in galaxy-like circles stretched out all over the place, Steven looked contemplatively at one close to his feet and spotted tiny planets and other such space-matter etched into the floor as well. He knew they must have been accurate star-maps.

Around these walkways, and up on flying machinery by the plants, there were a few Gems caring for and perfecting the new ornamental additions to Homeworld. Some of the platforms the plants were within were only half-filled, and some of the carvings on the ground incomplete.

The palace itself was not much to look at yet—it seemed to still be under construction. Scaffolding lined the outside walls of the place, particularly over partially disassembled parts of it. It seemed the whole thing was being reshaped. Steven wondered why it was being made over again so quickly, but he couldn’t say he didn’t like it.

As he entered the palace, the smell of the beautiful plants lining the cool crystalline entrance hall was dewy and fresh. He could see Gems of all different shapes and sizes walking—and flying on strange platforms up in the higher reaches—back and forth across the walls, watering them and making sure they were securely in place.

The colours of these flowers were being arranged precisely around each other to make attractive, curving patterns that would line the hall.

The floor had a new mural on it. The silhouettes of the Diamonds, Blue, Yellow, White and even Pink. They looked very similar to the old ones on the moon base, with one crucial difference; there were no planets held in their grips.

And, Steven was there, too. He found himself stopping to look at it. Simple, and standing out a bit next to the big, monochrome forms of the Diamonds, was he.

He didn’t really know how to feel about it. It was a nice mural, he supposed, if strange to see. He stared at it for a while.

He supposed this was the Diamond equivalent of a framed family photo on the wall of your home. Thinking about it in that way made him feel better about it.

White was squatting before some of the Gems watering the plants in the hallway that would lead to the Diamond’s private rooms. She spotted him slower than he saw her. Understandable, considering she was huge and faintly glowing, and he was five foot six and very much _not_ emitting any kind of light at the moment.

She clapped her hands together and grinned a white-toothed smile outlined perfectly by her black lips, “Steven!”

She looked down at the Gems she was talking to and hurriedly finished whatever instructions she was giving them; they nodded and ran along. She stood up tall and strode over to him, passing through the long corridor in just three easy steps before throwing her arms out wide, her cape embellishing the movement by flying outwards, rippling entrancingly.

“What do you think?”

Steven found himself returning her smile genuinely, “you did this?”

White nodded, “since the time for my charitable escapades has passed, I've found myself rather directionless—but with some help from Blue and Yellow, I’ve decided to take up some ‘hobbies’.” She said the final word as if it were entirely alien to her, “so I thought I’d start with redesigning the palace grounds again! This time with a far more _personal_ touch. So? What do you think?”

Steven grinned, cocking an eyebrow, “I _think_ it looks amazing! You’ve really outdone yourself, White.”

“Why, thank you, Starlight,” White said, flattered.

Steven always felt weird when she called him that, but he smiled at the display of affection anyway.

“Why don’t we go sit down and have a chat! You haven’t visited in so _long,_ I want you to tell me _all about_ everything you’ve been up to!”

Steven was glad to follow her to her room, passing by many Gems who were not pulling apart the corridors of the palace, but rather polishing and re-etching all the carvings in them in order to freshen up the place a little.

Steven felt some relief when he reached the stillness of White’s room. He didn’t catch it, but she felt it, too, as she always did. But she was in far better spirits than the last time Steven had visited, and she was going to shower him in the adoration she always did with added benefit of far more genuine smiles than usual.

She was exited to tell him everything about what she’d been getting up to lately, but Blue and Yellow had primed her a bit after their very candid talk when she reformed. She should be extra careful not to overwhelm him or speak over him today, because as much as she always tried not to, when she was enthusiastic about something, she tended to get carried away. And she was rather enthusiastic about everything she was up to today.

They sat together on her stage; she, cross-legged near the centre, Steven in a pink triangle that made up part of the multi-coloured geometric design on the floor, unchanged from his last visit. In fact, the whole room was the same. He supposed White could only deal with so much change at a time. Not to mention, her room was already pretty nice looking.

“So!” White said, smiling brightly, “where have your travels taken you lately, Steven?”

“I’ve been settled in this nice place kind of near Keystone since the last time I saw you,” Steven told White. His stints in new places across the states had slowed down a lot recently. He’d been at it for almost exactly two years; he had actually been thinking about broadening his horizons a bit lately. Travelling the world in full. Or maybe he should wait until Connie finished school?

He spoke to White about this, and about a few other little things. He noticed that she was acting a little different today—and it didn’t give him any anxiety, despite the fact that White being unpredictable was not an appealing thought to have. He liked to be able to feel a sense of routine in his interaction with her.

But no, this was a pleasant kind of change. A change in mood, perhaps? She seemed a little more attentive, her eyes shining as she watched him, her expression not as blankly agreeable as usual. She reacted more often to the things he said, asked a few more questions than usual when he spoke of things she didn’t know much about or said words she hadn’t heard before.

It was nice.

It was actually really, really nice.

It felt honest, not that White was ever especially _dishonest._ It was just that Steven felt he could actually read her a bit better today than he had been able to in the past. It made him feel much more comfortable around her.

Their talk of everything going on with him died down a bit eventually; and he felt a warm sense of contentedness in the fact that he felt comfortable enough around her to forget how long he’d been there for, to forget how long he’d been talking until his throat went dry and she sent for some water for him.

A tall glass of freezing clear water later, and it was White’s turn to talk.

She matched him for words spoken easily.

“I must admit, I’ve been a tad aimless since beginning of this new Era,” White said after a while, and she knew that she was not going to dump her insecurities and dark thoughts onto Steven, because that just wasn’t fair, and she knew since his meltdown that it would only make him feel worse, “but I’ve been working to find a place for myself here, recently. And I think everything is really coming along! I’ve started with being creative. Designing things, building things. But I’ve also been trying to learn about the Earth!”

Steven nodded, pleasantly surprised, “that sounds great, White.”

He meant it. He was actually kind of happy that she was doing something with herself that didn’t give other Gems power over her. Inwardly, recently, he’d worried… what if another Gem had the power and intention to do what he’d done to her? To take control of her and not give it up.

But Blue and Yellow had told him that she’d agreed to stop her ‘charitable escapades’, although she hadn’t been happy about it at first. He didn’t have any details other than that, but he was glad White had come around.

“Yes, I know all about the makeup of all its minerals, everything about Gem history there before we abandoned it—but I’ve recently been delving into a bit of the human side of things. I want to understand them better—and through them, understand you, and Pink.”

Oh. Steven didn’t know what he felt when his mom’s name was mentioned. Usually he started to squirm when any of the Diamonds—or anyone else, for that matter—spoke about her to him these days. But it wasn’t something he would hold against White when she was trying to connect with a long-dead family member and her son.

He smiled and nodded.

“And, you know, perhaps after that I’ll travel around a bit,” she said, waving a hand around for emphasis before looking to Steven, her eyebrows knitting together, “I wondered, Steven. Whether it would be alright if I visited Earth some time. To get to know it better, up close.”

She wanted to know what Pink saw in it. She wanted to know the place that Steven grew up and was so intertwined with.

Steven was taken aback by this.

“You’re asking me for permission?” he asked blankly.

White smiled, “yes.”

“Oh,” he said. Oh.

“Well—I don’t know,” he took a few moments to think about it before answering, “I guess it depends on how long your visits are. And how much I’m involved with them. Maybe we can talk about it properly when you decide to actually do it? When you know more specifically what your plans will be?”

White nodded approvingly, “yes, that sounds nice.”

After that, their discussion shifted back and forth and went on for a while. It felt lighter than any before it. White and Steven both felt more at home together than they had in the past while chatting like this.

Before they knew it, Blue and Yellow had joined them. Eventually, they decided to retreat to Blue’s pool.

It was sitting here, the water gently embracing her lower half as she watched the other three chat, that White truly had time to reflect.

Steven seemed happier than ever in recent times. She couldn’t help but mirror that when they interacted. Perhaps he noticed her more genuine happiness, too, and they were playing off each other, amplifying it all.

It was in this cheerful time that her worries returned. The heaviness she often felt settling down on her, seeing the other three so playful together.

Did they need her here at all?

Would it make a difference if she was here, sitting in the pool, or would they barely notice if she was gone?

And if they noticed, how much would they care? Would they be relieved to be rid of her?

White sighed, quietly.

She thought back to Blue and Yellow telling her that they loved her. To the hours she had just spent with a very upbeat Steven who seemed to enjoy being around her. Steven, who always chose to come back and visit even though he actually didn’t have to if he didn’t really want to.

Okay.

They’d miss her, she concluded.

And she had to come to that conclusion about five times a week after asking herself terrifying questions that she could never avoid anymore. But it was getting easier now, with her struggles out in the open, with the help of her family, to answer them truthfully.

She was working to be better. She had been since Steven had reformed as Steven. She wasn’t going to have any more outbursts; that had run its course back then, and she had decided every day since not to hurt anyone like she’d hurt her family that day ever again.

She was sad. And grieving. And a little lost.

But there was hope, and she was working as hard as she could to do better.

She was going to do better.

For everyone else—and now, for herself.

There was no alternative.

She tuned back into the conversation as Blue told a joke that White didn’t understand what was funny about, grinning and laughing like she never had in Era 2. Yellow was between her and White, relaxed like she hadn’t been in so long and beaming along with it.

Steven’s laugh sounded so much like Pink’s, his face creased with confusion as if he didn’t get the joke at all but was laughing because the others were.

White smiled.

 _Stars_ , she loved them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway the mood at the start of this was the Hawaii Part II album. You get points if you can guess which song inspired the title of the fic.  
> Follow me on Twitter if you want @mrbr0b0t0


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